This invention relates to a photo and pressure sensitive recording medium, and a process for copying an image with said recording medium, and further to an apparatus for carrying out said copying process.
The photo and pressure sensitive recording medium, on which a latent image can be recorded in response to the projection of the corresponding optical image, has been proposed as disclosed in the U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,399,209 and 4,440,846. Such a recording medium generally consisits of a carrier of film or paper, on whose surface photo-sensitive microcapsules are carried. For forming a latent image, there are several known ways to expose the above recording medium:
(1) The recording medium is closely attached to a positive text film or sheet, and the light is exposed onto the recording medium through the text.
(2) The recording medium is placed in opposition to a positive text film or sheet and a lens is disposed between the text and the recording medium. The light is exposed onto the recording medium through the text and the lens.
(3) The recording medium is placed in opposition to a text subject and a lens is disposed between the text subject and the recording medium. The light is projected onto the text surface and the microcapsules on the recording medium is exposed to the light reflected from the text surface.
In case of the above prior approaches (1) and (2), the text subject is required to be light-transmissive so that the text carrying information on both side thereof and/or the combined texts such as magazines could not be copied. On the other hand, in case of the approaches (2) and (3), the light would be attenuated while passing through the lens, and this makes it difficult to make full use of the light transmitted through or reflected from the text surface, which resulting in requiring a longer exposure time and therefore a longer time for copying operation.